How can we support each other's mission? Published March 24, 2008 By Lt. Col. James Kott 572nd Global Mobility Squadron commander TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Outstanding and excellent! Those were the only two words that were spoken over and over during our recent Air Mobility Command Logistics Standardization and Evaluation Program outbrief. What a great moment for all three wings; the 60th Air Mobility Wing, the 349th AMW and our own 615th Contingency Response Wing. As the maintenance and aerial port professionals know, these superior grades did not come easily. It was the result of intense preparation and incredible teamwork. I mention teamwork because we, as the 615th CRW, were very dependant on the 60th AMW for inspection preparation support. This support came in the form of facilities, equipment and leadership. Without the 60th AMW's support, we could not have achieved the "Outstanding" results that we did. However, now that the inspection is complete we need to find ways to partner and support each other's mission even more. But you might ask, "How do we partner more if we don't even know the CRW's mission?" "What do you do up there on the hill?" While the 615th CRW is responsible for a number of different missions, I would like to explain one of our missions; the contingency response group mission. Our CRG mission is to be trained, ready and on alert to "open an airbase" anywhere in the world. We are able to open a bare airbase as part of both a combat contingency and humanitarian operations. Basically, we set up airbases from scratch to include all of our living and working facilities in support of global mobility forces. You may have seen us build tent cities and our Mobility Air Reporting and Communications (shelter) during our internal exercises on Travis. It can be challenging work but well worth the effort! The CRGs (there are three in the 615th CRW) have two overall responsibilities; operations and base operating support. Operations consist of direct airbase support to the airfield, aircraft and transiting aircrew. This operations support includes command and control, airfield operations, weather, aircraft maintenance and aerial port. BOS consists of all the functions necessary to run an airfield including security forces, intel license, civil engineer, POL, supply, finance, vehicle maintenance and Office of Special Investigations to name just a few. Basically, we are a light and lean air expeditionary group until a whole air expeditionary wing is ready to assume their leadership role. Because we are "light and lean," CRG warriors play a big part in our own base security and we are sometimes called upon to man defensive fighting positions and conduct other base support operations. Bottomline - our CRG mission is an outstanding way to support AMC's global mobility mission. If you think this mission sounds exciting, come on over and we will show you! Finally, because we have many of the same functional areas within our three wings, there is an opportunity to support each other's missions. We already proved this with aerial port and maintenance during the LSEP, now it is time to ask how we can partner even more. Functional leaders should start by asking, "How can we mutually support each other's mission?" We would encourage you to call your functional leaders on the other side of Travis and gain a better understanding of their training and equipping requirements. By partnering together, we will be able to share our knowledge and experiences to make Team Travis even more capable of fulfilling our different missions.